irely mistaken,
you are a countrywoman of our own. Get up, Phil, and let Her Majesty
tell us her story. And mind your `P's' and `Q's', old man," he added in
a low tone; "don't let your sympathy and enthusiasm run away with you,
or you will be apt to excite possibly awkward comment on the part of Her
Majesty's ladies. You have made some of them open their eyes pretty
wide already, I can assure you."

With a muttered ejaculation Grosvenor hastily scrambled to his feet,
while the Queen, beckoning to two of her ladies, directed them to place
a couple of settees for her visitors close to her couch. Upon these the
two Englishmen seated themselves, in obedience to a sign from Her
Majesty, who thereupon addressed them:

"I fear," said she, "that I shall find it quite impossible to make you
understand how astonished and how glad I am to see you both. I am
astonished, because it is a law of this land that no aliens are ever
permitted to enter it--and live; and I am glad because you, like myself,
are English, and my dear mother taught me to believe that Englishmen are
always ready to help their countrywomen in distress under all
circumstances. And I am in distress, the greatest distress that I
suppose it is possible for a woman to be in. But let me tell you my
story--it will not take long--and then perhaps you will understand.

"I am twenty-three years of age, and of English parentage. My father
was an officer in the Indian army, and for nearly four years my mother
resided with him at a little frontier post called Bipur. Then trouble
arose; the hill tribes in the neighbourhood of Bipur committed certain
excesses, and an expedition was dispatched under my father's command.
Fighting ensued, and my father was killed in one of the earliest
engagements that took place. There was now nothing to keep my mother in
India, therefore, as the climate did not suit her, she made immediate
arrangements to return to England, taking passage in a sailing ship that
was proceeding home by way of the Cape, a long sea voyage having been
prescribed for the benefit of her health.

"I do not know how it happened, nor did my mother, but the ship was
wrecked on the African coast, and many lives were lost. My mother,
however, happened to be one of the saved; and she, with the rest of the
survivors, fell into the hands of certain natives who surprised their
camp on the beach in the dead of night. The men of the party were all
slain; and what b